


A Lady in the Moon

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red has never really looked at the moon before.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>“Some people say a lady lives up there. Just her and a little rabbit, forever trapped to watch over the night.” </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lady in the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime after Red Handed. Can be romantic or friendship, its ambiguous enough to be decided by the reader.

Red’s boots crunched against the leaves under her feet as she trudged out to call in Snow for dinner, tugging her hood firmly over her head; as if it could hide her from the rays of the full moon, stop her skin from feeling too tight over her bones.  
She stopped a few feet behind where the other girl was laying on the ground, one of their blankets and her cloak the only things separating her from the deeply frozen earth. Still, she seemed lazily content, staring up at the sky with half lidded eyes, paying no mind to the flakes that settled on her cheeks. Red paused, trying to school her expression from one of worry to a light teasing.  
“You know, if you covered up your hair, you’d blend right in. Careful, someone might step on you.”  
She made sure to step noisily as she came to plant her feet around Snow’s head. The girl looked up at her and laughed.  
“Just trying to live up to my namesake.”  
Red smiled, waiting for Snow to get up and come inside. But she didn’t seem to give any heed to her presence, merely continuing to gaze up into the heavens. After a moment, she sighed, “Isn’t it beautiful?”  
Red clenched her hands, which were cold and shaking, but eventually managed to pull her chin up enough to glance at the moon from underneath the protection of her hood. She couldn’t help the shiver that congregated at the base of her spine. “You’ll have to forgive me if I say I’ve never really looked.”  
A small, gloved hand pulled at the bottom of her dress, and Red looked down to see Snow had shifted on the blanket, and was patting the empty side. She hesitated for a moment before sinking down, hissing against the cold that bit through her dress, and tucked herself against Snow’s side.  
It took her a moment before Red was able to look at the moon. It made her dizzy, the notion of how many times she had perhaps seen this very image, without remembering. How much she had done under its light. The thoughts were stolen away as Snow tucked the red hood around her like a blanket, and took off her gloves to rub a bit of warmth into one of Red’s hands.  
So Red looked, and for a moment she was surprised at how clear it was, how perfectly round, chiseled from marble and hung against a pitch black canvas. Always had she just looked from the peripheral, and had always assumed it would be blurrier, more abstract, more pure and perfect than the shadows she could see on its surface.  
“Some people say a lady lives up there,” Snow said, and Red’s heart gave a pang at the palpable longing in her voice, “Just her and a little rabbit, forever trapped to watch over the night.”  
If she squinted, she could make out the rabbit’s shape; a thin body and tilted head and all ears.  
“It must be nice. To know that no one can ever get to you. To be able to see everything in the whole world, and not have to care. To just be able to watch. Nothing but peace and quiet.”  
“Maybe. Lonely, though.”  
Snow’s eyes slide over to her, regarding her softly for a moment, “Well she has the rabbit to talk to.”  
“A talking rabbit? I’m fairly certain they don’t have the capacity for human speech.” _Though I also didn’t know people had the capacity to turn into monsters,_ she thinks wryly.  
Red could feel the vibrations of Snow’s chuckle where her cheek rested on her shoulder, “Oh, so the woman and the rabbit living on the moon you’re fine with, but talking is out of the question.”  
“Well, I’ve just never heard of a talking rabbit, is all. But, what? Let me guess, you’ve chit-chatted with a bunny, Snow?”  
Her lips quirk into a defiant purse, “Well just the once. He was far too busy for me, though. Kept muttering about time and dates and then skittered away down a hole in a tree. But no one in the rodent family seems to be very forthcoming, I find, not like birds,” she takes a moment to consider, playing with Red’s fingers, “Well there _were_ those mice in the castle.”  
“You’re ridiculous,” Red manages, but can’t hide her laugh.  
“Mhmm,” she agrees, “But in a good way, you know.”  
And when Red can’t look at the moon any longer—can’t deal with the light’s pull on her vision, the way it seems to magnetize her skin and press down forcefully on her heart—she shifts onto her side and presses her forehead against Snow’s neck, letting her eyes sink shut. She’s still long enough that Snow thinks she’s fallen asleep, and she breathes out the sigh that seemed to constrict her chest and lets herself press a small kiss to Red’s knuckles.  
“Snow?” she murmurs.  
“Hmm?”  
“Why is the lady stuck on the moon? Did she choose to go, or was she sent there?”  
“I’m not sure. Hopefully she chose to go. Maybe she just wanted to escape the world, to live in tranquility.”  
Red quiets again, and Snow can almost feel the slow tug of doubt in the back of her mind.  
“I think she’d miss it, either way. Regret it, even. Peace. Safety. It’s not always the same thing as happiness.”  
Snow knows that they’re no longer talking about the lady in the moon, so she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t have anything to say. They let the crickets talk for them, fade away into the gentle giggles of a stream. They watch the lazy curl of smoke out of the cabin, and the bright, lonely face of the moon.


End file.
